For over 35 years Taylor Graham has been a volunteer search-and-rescue (SAR) dog handler. She and her husband have trained their German Shepherds to find missing people – in Alaska, rural Virginia, and California. She’s a veteran of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, the Berkeley-Oakland Hills firestorm, and other disasters, as well as hundreds of searches for lost hunters and hikers, elderly walkaways, victims of drowning, avalanche and homicide. For ten years she edited the National Association for Search and Rescue’s SAR Dog ALERT newsletter. With her search dog, she spent two summers as a Forest Service volunteer ranger in the Mokelumne Wilderness. No longer on SAR callout, she still trains her dogs at least weekly; German Shepherds don’t understand retirement.

For my husband, Hatch, who’s had dogs all his life; and for all the dogs who’ve shared our lives and taught us so much — Taylor Graham

“If they don’t allow dogs in heaven, then I don’t want to go!” — Grandpa Armstrong

“Days and nights in Los Angeles, roots tugged out, wrung out, chatrooms, classrooms, malls, toilets, Help Wanted at the 7-Eleven, elusive boys, “urgent hunger,” the American 20th century, loneliness and betrayal—these poems have begun to haunt me. Alex Frankel sings in a register almost beyond hearing, the pain is so keen, the writing so fine.”

Alicia Ostriker, author of The Book of SeventyCover art by Luka Fisher

The second annual LUMMOX Anthology came out on November 15, 2013. This is the PLACE issue…poems about PLACE, whether it be geographic or nostalgic or emotional, PLACE is a powerful motivator, as the nearly 180 poets demonstrate. Here’s a list of the poets in this issue:

This book retails for $25 plus shipping ($29 – US, $32 – CAN/MEX and $39 -WORLD). Just use the Pull-down, Pay Pal button below…Please be sure to select the appropriate location (USA, CAN/MEX, or WORLD).

Curious? Check it out here. Or come to a reading (there are readings scheduled for parts of L.A. County, but also in Sacramento, Seattle/Everett, WA and in Pittsburgh, PA and Boulder, CO…with more in the works).

If you wish to pay bycheck or money-order, please make it out to Lummox Productions and send to Lummox c/o PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733 USA.

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Lummox Number 2, edited by R.D. Armstrong, is a literary journal devoted almost entirely to poetry. This edition’s theme is “place,” which allows readers a glimpse of cultures all around the world. However, the theme is much more varied than the simple geographic references the theme suggests. As Armstrong points out in his introduction, many of the poets chose to use a broader view of place so that readers get to experience “place as an emotion, as nostalgia, as a metaphor…” These concepts are sure to broaden readers’ views of the world and their place within it.

The editor chose to use a quote by Octavio Paz to start this work: “The poem is important, the poet is not.” This motto seems to denote the attitude within this collection quite well. The poems within are an outstanding blend of poems by well-known and lesser known poets alike, and each poem has been allowed to stand on its own in the collection, and they do so quite well. This collection would be excellent for a scholar of poetry trying to get a glimpse at what is new and fresh, as well as a newcomer to poetry trying to figure out what poetry is all about. While all of the poems used the same theme of “place” as a starting point, the poems themselves are quite wide and varied. Students and scholars of poetry will also find a wealth of useful information in the essays, interviews, and reviews that are included in this journal. I am quite pleased to have become aware of this new journal, and I will definitely be keeping my eye for a 3rd edition of Lummox.

“In The Broken Lines, Judith Skillman distills the wisdom gained from her long successful career as a poet into a succinct [number of] pages that are remarkable for their liveliness and enthusiasm as well as for their accessibility. Aspiring poets should find the practical advice she offers not only helpful but inspiring.

—Stephen Meats, Poetry Editor, The Midwest Quarterly.”

“Another highlight is Judith Skillman’s [chapter] “Revising Your Poetry Manuscript for Theme.” Skillman’s advice and exercises will be helpful to poets wondering how to arrange disparate poems into a coherent manuscript for submission to a first book contest or publisher.”

— excerpted from RATTLE Magazine’s review of Women on Poetry

The goal of this book is to enable poets at all stages of development to move from their current stage or plateau to the next level in cultivating a unique voice and poetic music. This book encourages the student of poetry to entertain a kind of Zen consciousness, a “Beginner’s Mind”—for that is the only way to continue serenely in the business of writing poems. The work is cognizant of the fact that most often, if you ask a person why they write poetry, the answer will be “Because I have no choice.”

This text can be used by a poet on his or her own, or it can become a tool in the classroom. Broken Lines contains chapters on theory and practice. Whether one is a beginning writer, has been writing for years and never taken a class, or has published work in journal and/or book form, Broken Lines includes content to propel the writing life forward.

For over 35 years, Taylor Graham has been working with Search & Rescue (SAR) dogs. She has traveled far and wide searching for lost hikers in the wilderness, victims of earthquakes and sadly, dead bodies. Walking the Puppy contains poems written for/about her current dog, Loki. Even though Taylor has retired from active duty, Loki has not…as Taylor puts it, SAR dogs never retire, so they must be continuously trained and exercised.

This chapbook was a precursor to a larger collection remembering all of Taylor’s dogs and their adventures over the years, entitled What The Wind Says. If you love dogs, you’re going to love these books.

Ann Curran has written a book like no other. With a reporter’s eye and a poet’s vision, she has created a new genre—a poetry of utter frankness. For grief, see the Kennedy poem. For candor, the poem to Maxine Kumin. For accuracy, her lines on “cagey” Seamus Heaney. Whether the subject is the million dollar sale of a bishop’s mansion, the Warhol and Ginsberg myths or the “profound” jottings of Kay Ryan and other superficialists, this is poetry at war with fakery on all fronts, and it’s as unignorable as it is rare. —Samuel Hazo, director, International Poetry Forum, professor emeritus, Duquesne University.

The “me” of these poems celebrates “connecting.” Ann Curran identifies persons and associations that have places in her drama. The voice can be modest, sardonic, even outrageous. Never just chronicler and seasoned by her years as a reporter, no foolishness and no person goes unnoticed. The writer’s wit, balanced by tenderness, makes the reader look forward to each poem. You want to laugh, cry, applaud. You’ll love her authenticity. —Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, professor emerita, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

In musically charged lyrics, Christine DeSimone takes on the big questions: “Where is the life you want?” and “So how do you do it? Where do you go to begin again?” Her poems travel the globe looking for answers, from a diner in Chatsworth to a Lisbon night that “drops like an exiled heart,” from an “office with no windows,” to the Cliffs of Dover, from Billie Holiday’s deathbed to the “fluorescent gloom” of the Tenderloin. At each stop, DeSimone listens with “dog-whistled acumen / to find what the world is really saying,” rendering all she hears in stark, unflinching detail. –Cheryl Dumesnil, author of In Praise of Falling and Love Song for Baby X

5150: A Memoir is no ordinary collection. It is a mixture of poetry and prose that explores her own personal journeys inside and outside of the psych ward. Dealing with issues such as sexuality, self-mutilation, eating disorders, substance abuse, and mental health, her book addresses a lot of issues that are seldom talked about (but need to be). She is currently on her way to recovery, and she hopes that by sharing her story with the world, she can help others in difficult times find the light and confidence within themselves to succeed in this difficult and fast paced world that we live in.

The term 5150 refers to the section of the California Penal Code which deals with subjects who are, or may be, a danger to themselves because of mental disturbance. It allows law enforcement to hold a person for 72 hours for observation , to determine if they require a further, longer stay in the hospital (5250).

“As a reader, I treasure your work; as a writer, I greatly admire your creativity and skill; as someone who also endures the temptations of addiction, I empathize with your daily challenges but, most of all, I respect the determination with which you have successfully worked to control those demons.” – James Greco, fan & writer

“I wrote her to honor her (the pronoun, the ‘used to’ parts in me), to try and de-toggle something in me, to uphold a previous (yet very necessary) identity while making space in me for new pronouns, new identities. The future tense of the present houses the past in a sweet casing. I want to honor the her in me: the her in her stilettos and pencil skirts, the her who begins to become the land of the Australian outback (with dreadlocks and bare feet), the her that is less her and more something else with that shaved head and those boxers, pants sagging into a plethora of pronouns. All of these deserve honor because all of them are true: all of these are me.”

j/j hastain

“One of poetry’s most bedeviling challenges is to render the ineffable into language.The bolder poets face the difficulty of not only writing about the complex subjects but of writing about those liminal spaces in topics where language does not yet exist. j/j hastain has succeeded here as few yet have in being able to give voice to the unfolding/enfolding complexities of gender and identity.”